Maxim MG08/15 Light Machine Gun : 6 Battalion AIF, Strazeele

German Maschinengewehr 08/15 Light Machine Gun. This was a water cooled, fully automatic weapon, firing a belt-fed 7.92mm caliber rimless round at up to 450 rounds per minute. It worked on the short recoil principle, in which the barrel and breechblock recoiled rearward 18mm securely locked together. The barrel was then halted, while the breeckblock continued to the rear. A recoil spring halted the movement and propelled the block forward, stripping a round from the belt and feeding it into the chamber.

The weapon has a wooden shoulder stock, a pistol grip, and a light stamped-steel bipod. The pistol grip is badly twisted, probably battle damaged, and loosely attached to the body with a metal chain. The bipod is attached under the base of the cooling jacket, but is similarly badly damaged, possibly by schrapnel. The weapon is missing its trigger, breech mechanism, fusee spring and cover plate, and its barrel (RELAWM11017.002) has been removed.

The weapon's receiver has an overall black finish, possibly an oxide coating. The water jacket and bipod appear to have been painted with a thin coat of field grey. This coating has largely off. The shoulder stock is of a tan coloured wood, highly scuffed. Top receiver cover plate is engraved with the serial number 3905 over J P SAUER & SOHN SUHL 1917. The feed block is partially painted with light green enamel. The gun's cooling jacket has been painted with 'Captured 6th BATT AIF STRAZEELE 9-7-18' in white paint, 'G5755' in yellow and 'F3654' in white.

This German MG08/15 machine gun was captured on the night of 9 July 1918 by Number 12 Platoon, 6th Battalion AIF at Strazeele. The attack was made by C Company from Australian positions to the west of Strazeele, and involved 9, 10, 11 and 12 Platoons. Lieutenant Hitchcock commanded 12 Platoon; the attack started at 10:30 pm and was completed between 11:35 and midnight. The battalion war diary notes that 12 Platoon "met and engaged the enemy... [and] inflicted many casualties and captured three prisoners who were sent to the rear. Others fleeing were fired on". In total the Company captured 9 German machine guns (including this machine gun), two trench mortars and a large number of rifles and ammunition. Lieutenant Hitchcock was "slightly wounded but remained on duty".

The captured positions were wired and formed an extension of the Australian front line. By this and similar small attacks and aggresive patrolling (dubbed "peaceful penetration"), the Australian battalions throughout July 1918 captured scores of German prisoners, 14 machine guns and eventually, the town of Merris itself.

The gun itself is a lightened and more portable version of the German Army's MG 08 machine gun. This was largely achieved by reducing the size of the original MG 08's receiver and breech assembly, reducing the cooling jacket's diameter to 92.5 millimeters, and fitting a short bipod rather than a heavy four legged sled mount, plus a wooden gunstock and a pistol grip.

At 18 kg, the weapon was designed to provide increased mobility of infantry automatic fire. It nevertheless remained a bulky water-cooled weapon, in contrast to the British Army's air-cooled and lighter Lewis machine gun. The MG 08/15 nonetheless became the most common German machine gun deployed in World War I reaching an allocation of six guns per company by 1918. About 130,000 MG 08/15s were manufactured during World War I.